James Joyce’s Ulysses is a modernist novel that was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920. It was finally published in its entirety in Paris on Joyce’s birthday in 1922. Using the Homeric epic The Odyssey as a framework, the novel describes the events of a single day in the life of its protagonist, Leopold Bloom. With virtuosic writing that covers the process of thinking, Ireland’s relationship to Britain, and modernism in the early 20th century, it is considered to be one of the most important modernist works. Its stream-of-consciousness prose, puns and wordplay have made it an icon of experimental literature.
About the author
James Joyce (1882-1941) was an Irish novelist and poet. A contributor to the modernist avant-garde movement, he is regarded as one of the most influential and important authors of the twentieth century and is best known for Ulysses (1922), a novel that parallels Homer’s Odyssey using an array of literary styles.